


unlikely bedfellows

by idlesong



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Frenemies, M/M, Roommates, debatably hateful hate sex, human hurricane ten, mentions of recreational drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 15:15:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17624804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlesong/pseuds/idlesong
Summary: It’s not that Doyoung hates his roommate, but Ten wouldn’t have been his first choice. Things arejustbearable enough, however, until Ten’s walking into Doyoung’s room at night and climbing into bed next to him.(full title: close quarters make for unlikely bedfellows)





	unlikely bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday lord doie i humbly bequeath unto thee 11k of ten making ur life miserable in an alternate universe
> 
> a [diagram](https://i.imgur.com/q6u7Euk.jpg) of doyoung & ten's apartment for visual reference!! it's not crucial to the understanding of the fic but it might help

Having had bad experiences in the past, it’s Doyoung’s hope that he would get a legitimately compatible roommate this year. Being a fourth year, he was given priority to a better dormitory that, while on the outskirts of campus, was an honest-to-god _apartment_ rather than a dorm room that he had suffered through his freshman, sophomore, and junior years. For the first time, he would get his own bedroom and not have to share a bathroom with an entire floor of people, and the idea was damn near enough to bring him to tears.

In his first year, he lived with Yukhei, an intellectual prodigy who had finished high school at 16 but who made an absolute shit storm out of his and Doyoung’s shared room to the point of Doyoung being unable to remember the colour of the carpet. When packing up in the spring, he found that many of his belongings had been invaded by the ant colony that had formed due to Yukhei’s small bottles of drinkable yogurt being discarded anywhere he could. Doyoung had resisted the urge to throw out everything he owned, along with Yukhei, out the window.

In his second year, he lived with Taeyong, who was tidy and kept to himself, but who was also a little _too_ obsessed with keeping clean. The constant scent of Clorox wipes lingered in their too-small room and left Doyoung with awful headaches. This was aside from the fact that he would also regularly find Taeyong going through his things to make sure Doyoung wasn’t keeping anything that could attract bugs. Taeyong continued this routine even after Doyoung had assured him that the incident the year before made him extra cautious himself.

In his third year, Doyoung had gotten his own damn room, but to his great misfortune he was put on a floor full of first years and the noise never stopped. It was all because of that damn Donghyuck and his friends. Doyoung filed a mountain of complaints against him over the year and that kid had the audacity to fold the behaviour reports into paper hearts and slip them underneath Doyoung’s door.

It’s his last year of university and Doyoung thinks he deserves to have a good roommate for once. One who doesn’t terrorize his life. Or they could, but they just have to do so in moderation. His standards are impossibly low at this point. He just needs someone who will be a goddamn _decent_ person.

With the dwindling optimism he had as the broken, bitter fourth year he was, Doyoung didn’t bother filling out his roommate compatibility application. In his first year, he had written his answers honestly and ended up with Yukhei, who had blatantly lied in order to get a quiet roommate. In his second year, Doyoung had overshot his answers and ended up with Taeyong, who Doyoung’s fairly certain used Febreze as cologne.

That’s why Doyoung had said fuck it, and rolled the dice this time around because it’s not like any actual initiatives he took to better his living situation helped it. When he was first informed via email that Ten was his roommate, he thought, _how bad could it be?_

Initially Doyoung was happy to give Ten the benefit of the doubt. He hadn’t been able to get in contact with Ten prior to move-in, but that didn’t stop Doyoung from trying to reignite his optimism and feel confident about his new roommate not being the worst. How wrong he was he had yet to know, but it was a gradual feeling that Doyoung had tried to ignore for too long, an ignorant victim to the quicksand of his own demise.

 

On move-in day, Ten is nowhere to be found, although his name tag is taped to the front door right beside Doyoung’s. In a bout of exceeding hope, Doyoung wondered whether Ten had pulled out last minute, leaving Doyoung blissfully alone in this place where he could keep it as clean and as quiet as could be.

Three days later, after even the freshmen had moved in, Doyoung thinks that it’s safe to assume the bedroom across from his would be permanently vacant. He felt overjoyed.

Eight hours later, the door swung open, and a man walks in, bringing two suitcases along with him. Without giving much regard to Doyoung, he marches right in, tracking in the dirt from his shoes and the wheels of his bags across the living room and into the empty bedroom.

Doyoung gets up from his spot on the couch tentatively, wondering whether the man had completely ignored him on purpose or had genuinely not seen him as he walked past. Slowly, he peeks his head into the adjacent bedroom.

“Hello—Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” Doyoung shouts upon seeing that the man’s got his shirt around his head. The man just laughs, finishes taking off his shirt, and turns around to approach Doyoung.

“Sorry, honey,” he says, clearly amused. “I was gonna say hi after I got changed. I’m Ten.” So this is Ten. Apparently Ten doesn’t mind being shirtless in front of strangers. “And I’d shake your hand but I just got off a six hour flight so I’m a little gross.”

“That’s okay,” Doyoung says, trying not to let his eyes linger. “How was your flight from…?”

“Thailand. It was alright, except a flight attendant threw an absolute fucking fit at me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry—”

“He got mad at me for vaping in the bathroom,” Ten says with a frown. “Can you believe it?”

Yes, Doyoung can. Because his luck is the worst, and while his roommate might be meticulously folding away his loudly printed clothing, he also _reeks_ of artificial cherry. Again, Doyoung’s standards have hit rock bottom, because he’s glad the smell is more pleasant than Clorox.

 

They get along well enough, at least at first, before Ten’s real tendencies start to peek through. He’s an eccentric one, Doyoung could gather that from the moment he walked in, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be a decent person to live with. Those first few weeks Doyoung makes up the necessary excuses in his head—maybe Ten was up at all hours because of the (barely significant) jet lag, maybe he didn’t have time to do the dishes before class, maybe he didn’t realize how thin the walls were when he blasted music.

Doyoung keeps making excuses, that is, until the incident near the end of their first month together.

“Ten?”

Doyoung’s tried to keep these meek calls of his name and knocks on the door to a minimum, not wanting to come off as overbearing, but this one had to be addressed.

“Yes, honey?” Ten turns around in his desktop chair, a pair of headphones being slid down to rest around his neck. The smile on his face is, as usual, suspicious, but Doyoung doesn’t know him well enough to make that judgement for sure.

“I don’t know if you saw my note this morning, but could you take your shoes off when you come in the house?” Doyoung asks, trying his best to continue being amiable. It hadn’t just been one note, but several, their contents getting increasingly passive-aggressive as Doyoung piled one neon coloured sticky-note over another on Ten’s door.

Not only that, but Doyoung had also left a pair of house slippers in the foyer too, brand new and still in their plastic. He even made a point of getting on his hands and knees with a sponge and bucket to clean their floors while Ten was in the living room, lounging on the couch.

So all that had been done and now Doyoung is finally taking the most assertive action.

“Yeah, about that,” Ten starts, and Doyoung feels relief start to bloom in his chest. “I don’t really feel like it.”

If he lived in a cartoon, steam would probably be pouring out of Doyoung’s ears right now like he was a boiling kettle. He would also be pulling an anvil out of hammerspace to drop on Ten and watch some tweeting birds fly above his unconscious body.

“I mean, if you have a problem with it, you can clean it up, right?” Suddenly the smile on Ten’s face isn’t suspicious anymore, but smug. Doyoung clenches his fists and smiles back.

 

Ten isn’t the worst person Doyoung’s ever lived with, but he’s the only person to go out of his way to implement small miseries in Doyoung’s life. It’s one thing to have unchangeable idiosyncrasies, but it’s another to just be an annoying prick for fun.

At some point, Doyoung dispenses with the formalities.

The unmistakeable stench of cigarettes that’s been driving him mad over the past few days is no longer tolerable, he decides, marching over to the adjacent room and pounding on the door. Ten opens the door, smiling lazily, the lit culprit held between his fingers.

“May I help you, honey?” he drawls.

“Put that out. It’s giving me a headache,” Doyoung says. Ten’s expression doesn’t change, and he takes another infuriating drag before responding.

“There’s a no smoking rule on campus, where else am I supposed to get my fix?”

“Anywhere but here,” Doyoung hisses. “I’ll call residence services, you know.” He omits the fact that residence services hates him for all the grief he’s put them through as a result of his own.

“You ever think about, like, unclenching? Just relaxing a little bit?” Ten asks, unfazed. “This is my last one. I _am_ trying to smoke out the window, you know.”

“Thanks for your consideration,” Doyoung says with a scowl. “And no, I’ll stay this stressed all year if you keep acting like an ass.”

Ten rolls his eyes. “A few cigarettes here and there is hardly affecting you. Next you’ll be telling me not to light up in the house.”

“I _did_ tell you that! Last week!”

“Did you? I must’ve been too high to remember.”

Ten’s laugh gives Doyoung a headache that lasts the rest of the day.

 

That incident wasn’t anything new, but it was the last attempt for a long while of trying to get Ten to change. Doyoung had done everything to ameliorate the situation, aside from spraying Ten with water every time he misbehaved. What was the point if his roommate is so unwilling to listen? Doyoung is best off trying to ignore him with all his might and focusing all of his energy into getting his degree.

But one night, “Doyoung! Doyoung!” Ten shrieks from his room, enough to startle Doyoung out of his own sleep. His first thought is that they’re going to get slapped with a noise complaint because Ten should really not be this fucking loud at this hour.

But Doyoung drags his feet out of bed and to Ten’s room anyway, pushes open the door, and sees Ten backed up against the wall. His balled up fists are held close to his shoulders, the perfect portrait of terror as he whimpers Doyoung’s name again.

“Doyoung, there’s a spider on the wall,” Ten whines. “Catch it.”

Doyoung turns around to leave the room, the apartment, maybe he’ll just keep walking until he completely submerges himself in the nearest body of water. Ten catches his arm, his nails digging into wrist.

“No, no, Doyoung, please, I won’t be able to sleep if I know it’s there!”

“You should be asleep anyway,” Doyoung says, retracting his hand. “It’s three in the fucking morning.”

Ten pouts at him in response. “But…I was busy…doing homework.” Doyoung looks to Ten’s desktop monitor and sees a paused porn video. Ten smiles at him innocently.

Doyoung wants to end two lives that night, but he spares both himself and his roommate, as well as the spider, who he lets loose in Ten’s laundry basket before he goes back to bed.

 

There’s more radio silence after that, because Doyoung is really just trying his best to finish up his credits and fucking graduate this year. He doesn’t want to let his future prospects be tainted by his rowdy roommate and any of the shenanigans that he refuses to get pulled into. Ten goes about his business as usual too, and yeah, he still sweetly cajoles Doyoung into doing his dishes (that he does out of necessity, not flattery) and loudly, drunkenly stumbles into the apartment a few times a week, but Doyoung can handle it.

Having his own bedroom has helped immensely this year, since he has a place to which he can retreat when Ten’s debauchery becomes too much. Finals have been creeping up on the both of them as the end of first semester approaches, so the barrage of annoyances against Doyoung have paused for the meantime. Good thing too, since his stress has stretched him thin enough that he’ll snap any second now.

It’s Saturday morning, and he has a financial modelling project due on Monday, but he’s gotten enough work done already that he can afford to relax. Usually when things are really hectic he finds himself up by nine every morning, but he takes his time today, lazing about in his sheets until his hunger gets him up. It’s already noon by the time he saunters into the kitchen, but he doesn’t expect Ten to be up for another hour or two.

He’s surprised, however, by the figure of a young woman standing over the island, helping herself to a bowl of cereal. Oh this poor girl, Doyoung thinks, Ten probably brought her home last night and he’s still passed out in his bed. She had to leave the vicinity of his opium den of a bedroom to forage food for herself.

Doyoung probably shouldn’t stare, but the woman’s hard _not_ to look at. Her head’s bent over her bowl, but he can still see the pretty curve of her chin and how her long, tumbling brunette curls frame her face. She’s wearing a top that cuts at her shoulders and her stomach, exposing an expanse of skin that’s only outdone by how her skirt barely reaches mid-thigh.

“Um, hello?” Doyoung says in tentative greeting. It was either that or breaking down Ten’s door to tell him to handle his one-night-stands himself.

“Morning, honey.”

It takes Doyoung’s brain 0.2 seconds to figure it out, but Ten’s lifting his head and straightening his posture anyway, giving his roommate a smile.

“It’s the afternoon,” he says, because his brain has yet to catch up with his mouth. He blinks his dry eyes a few more times, rubs at them with his sleeve, hopes he’s still just having a bad dream. But when he looks up Ten is still standing there, eating what Doyoung now realizes are _his_ honey bunches of oats, acting as though this is all fine and dandy.

“Why the fuck—“ Doyoung begins to say, cutting himself off because he doesn’t know how to finish his sentence.

Ten shrugs. “Beats me. I went to _some_ fucking party last night. Sicheng is an absolute mad man.”

Doyoung has heard Sicheng’s name a few times, but he has little interest in knowing anything more about Ten’s life besides the parts of it that make Doyoung’s miserable. Now that he can actually see Ten’s face, he sees that it’s not just the clothes and wig, but the remnants of a meticulously applied face of makeup are still on him, visible in his bright lips and smudged mascara on his lower lash line.

“Do I look pretty?” Ten asks coyly, sticking the end of his spoon in his mouth. He chucks it into the sink behind him, misses, and doesn’t bother picking it up, instead walking to the fridge to rummage around.

Doyoung wants to scream. He also realizes, far too late, that his vexation’s made him fixate on Ten as he moves about, including his prolonged gaze on how Ten’s skirt hikes up his thighs and exposes the curve of his ass as he’s bent over looking in the fridge.

Except—“Are you drinking my juice?” Doyoung asks, seething.

“Yeah, I’m dehydrated as hell,” Ten says, putting his lips to the jug of orange juice that Doyoung has to go out of his way to buy from a local market to ensure the oranges are organic and grown without pesticides. “Anyway, don’t I make a cute girl? Maybe I should dress like this more often.”

Doyoung is ready to chase Ten out of this apartment with a slipper in hand. “It’s too early for this,” he groans, putting his face into the palm of his hand.

“Too early for what?” Ten asks with a sly grin, flipping up the side of his skirt to reveal a pair of pink satin panties hugging his ass far too perfectly.

Doyoung turns around, marches into his room, and slides back into bed to scream into his pillow, as well as will his boner away. The sound of Ten’s heels clacking around the apartment prevents him from getting anymore sleep. Doyoung soon has the realization that that motherfucker _still_ didn’t take his shoes off before coming into the house.

 

The rest of the semester passes without major incident. Or at least, none considerably major for Doyoung’s standards of disaster. The bar is low.

Winter break comes and goes and Doyoung almost forgets about how living with Ten affects his wellbeing. He had no time to dwell; he had interviews to attend even when he was back home for his holiday, needed to tie up the loose ends of the future that was so rapidly approaching. Come this spring, his commerce program would be handing him his degree and affectionately kicking him out, if all went according to plan.

Doyoung plans to graduate with honours, thank you very much, and he has a lot riding on how his very last semester plays out. He won’t let anything distract him.

Except he should have also clarified that he didn’t want _anyone_ to distract him as well, because Ten surely will. And he does. Because Ten knows how to push Doyoung’s buttons like no one else with his blatant lack of consideration for the fact that someone else lives with him.

Ten stayed in their apartment over the holiday, said it was too expensive to fly back home, and maybe if he wasn’t the bane of Doyoung’s existence Doyoung would have felt bad enough to invite him to his parents’ house. But no, Doyoung doesn’t even _like_ Ten enough to consider him a friend. There’s just something so wrong about the idea of letting him into _another_ one of his homes and letting him cause ruckus there too.

Doyoung’s dreading having to confront the mess that Ten has surely left for him. Maybe leaving him alone for three weeks wasn't his best course of action. Perhaps Doyoung should have dropped him off at a daycare of some sort.

There's probably dishes piled in the sink and dirt all over the hardwood and Doyoung already has a cluster headache thinking about all the cleaning he's going to have to do when he returns. He sends Ten a text that curtly says, "back tmrw @ 6pm" in the faint hope that Ten will make the place decent but Doyoung won't be shocked if he doesn't. The bar is _so_ low.

What actually surprises him when he lets himself in the day after is the fact the apartment looks...fine. Ten's shoes are even in a neat pile by the entrance, neatly stored in the bottom shelf of the shoe rack that Doyoung brought at the beginning of the year. With great caution he walks further into the place, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that everything seems normal. Ten's sketchbook and pencils are scattered on the table in the living room, but that's hardly anything to be upset at.

Hm. Maybe Ten had a change of heart over the break. Doyoung maintains this hopeful thought up until he hears a loud moan behind him.

"God, yes—Fuck.”

His blood runs cold, and goddamn it, he turns around because he fears nothing anymore.

Except, maybe, seeing his roommate getting pounded over the kitchen island. Ten and the lovely stranger he's brought into their home don't seem to realize Doyoung's presence, not until Doyoung shouts a loud and rather expletive greeting.

"Oh! Hey—Doyoung, how was your br-break? Jesus Christ, Jaehyun, relax." Ten winces as the stranger—Jaehyun, Doyoung can now safely assume—doesn’t let up one bit. They're not entirely naked at least, their pants only in a messy pile around their ankles which, to Doyoung, suggests that it wasn't their explicit intention to be fucking in the kitchen.

Or, considering Ten had _known_ what time Doyoung would be home, it was purposefully done so he would walk in on them. Doyoung doesn't know if he would rather believe that his roommate is a regular asshole or a sociopathic one.

Jaehyun leans forward, sucks a mark into the side of Ten's neck that makes him squirm, and Doyoung feels his soul leaving his body.

"You just gonna stand there and watch, or are you gonna join us?" Ten asks with the most sickly saccharine tone of voice Doyoung's ever heard. Jaehyun glances over at Doyoung for the first time since his arrival, sizing him up with interest. One of his hands has a tight hold on Ten's waist, the other holding his upper body down against the tile of the island’s surface.

By the way the fridge magnets seem to have spread apart and fallen onto the floor, Doyoung safely assumes this has either been happening for a while or is a repeat occasion. The image burns into his mind before he can prevent its entrance.

All the colour drains out of Doyoung's face and goes somewhere he would really like not to discuss. Ten makes some sort of whining noise, and Doyoung, returning to earth, takes hold of his suitcase handle again.

"Where you going, honey?" Ten laughs, and Doyoung doesn't respond, just rolls his suitcase out of the apartment once more. He'll crash at Johnny's for the night. Maybe until the weekend. If Johnny was willing to give up his couch, Doyoung would be happy to sleep there for the whole semester. Just anywhere but here.

 

It takes three days for Doyoung to muster up the mental fortitude to come back to the apartment. There hadn't been any communication on Ten's part to make him return, and it's the realization he has that finally gets him to march back in.

"Are you trying to drive me out?" Doyoung asks, without much prelude, to Ten as he sits on the couch in nothing but a pair of Gudetama boxers.

"No?" Ten replies, leafing through Doyoung’s copy of _The Economist_. "Where have you been?"

"Elsewhere," Doyoung says through gritted teeth.

Ten sets down the magazine in front of him and stands up, gets too close to Doyoung for him to at all be comfortable.

“What?” It doesn’t come off nearly as intimidating as Doyoung wants to sound, considering Ten’s face is inches away from his own.

“I’ll get you to crack eventually,” Ten states, before his lips curve into a grin. “Welcome home, honey.”

 

Doyoung doesn’t like the sound of that at all, but he tries not to let it bother him too much as he settles back into classes. The ominous threat remains in his peripheral vision constantly though, because any day he’s expecting to come home to some hedonistic display in the apartment. Strangely enough, Ten does nothing.

And it’s absolutely killing Doyoung. Because he wants to tell Ten to _get on with it already_ and unleash hell so Doyoung can die and move on to the things in his life that actually matter. He’s wound tight enough as it is. He could do without having to contemplate what “cracking”, as Ten so gleefully put it, really means.

Does Ten want Doyoung to move out? Doyoung isn’t sure, and he would also like not to find out. Anytime Ten so much looks his way, that stupid endearment of “honey” written on his lips, Doyoung wants to jump out the window. Or push Ten up against the nearest flat surface. Doyoung doesn’t know anymore.

Johnny, when this is all being explained to him, says, “It’s kinda cute, like when you have a crush on someone in elementary school and chase them around and pull on their pigtails.” He’s almost as amused as Doyoung is furious, chuckling to himself as he stirs milk into his coffee in the kitchen.

“Well, I want him to leave my pigtails the fuck alone,” Doyoung says, slamming the bottom of his mug against the counter for effect. “He doesn’t have a _crush_ on me, I think he’s planning on driving me crazy.”

“So he tracks a little dirt into the house. It’s better than anyone else you’ve lived with.”

“It’s just not _fair_ that this is happening to me. I’m a good person! I dealt with three years of awful living circumstances. Don’t I deserve at least one decent year for all I’ve paid?” Doyoung whines, his chin tilted up to plead to the deities.

Johnny laughs, and leans forward against the island. “Your loss for not getting your own place. Never have to worry about living with any weirdos.”

“I could not eat for a whole year and I still wouldn’t be able to afford my own place,” Doyoung says with a frown. “We’re not all lucky enough to have as many savings as you do.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m lucky to have worked in a 7/11 for all of high school—“

“My point stands! I don’t deserve this, Johnny.” Doyoung points determinedly towards his friend. “And I won’t let him break me, under any circumstances.”

“I’m home!” Ten announces, unnecessarily, as he enters the apartment. He takes off his shoes, Doyoung notes, making his way to the kitchen with plastic bags in hands. “Gonna make jello shots later, do you want any?”

“No,” Doyoung says flatly.

“Can I have some?” Johnny asks, side-stepping to make room for Ten.

Ten nods. “Of course. Hope you like strawberry vodka.”

“All for it,” Johnny says.

Ten gives Johnny a friendly smile and trots off to his own room, leaving his groceries on the floor of the kitchen without doing anything to get them out of the way.

“He seems nice,” is what Johnny says first. “Would you kill me if I—“

“Yes,” Doyoung answers. “Also, he fucked someone on the island.”

Johnny glances down at the counter on which he’s leaning, and shrugs. “I’m assuming you wiped it down with Clorox already.”

Doyoung hisses. “I _told_ you to never mention Clorox again!”

 

Call him paranoid, but Doyoung isn't getting the best rest lately, too wary of what Ten might do to him in his sleep. He's had more than one stress dream of waking up to find himself superglued to his sheets, or being surrounded by thumbtacks on the floor, or getting airlifted from his place in bed to some uninhabitable place in Australia. The worst thing, simply put, is that he doesn't know what Ten is capable of.

Tonight, however, Ten is nowhere to be seen when Doyoung comes home from the library. At first this throws him off—it could be a trap—but the empty spot on Ten's shoe shelf makes it seem as though he's just gone out for the night. That's a relief to Doyoung who, at the very least, can hurry to bed and get some precious sleep before being shaken awake by his own apprehension.

A few hours later, Doyoung is woken up by the sound of his door creaking open. He had been considering getting a lock for his bedroom door as of late, but he didn't know if the extra cost was worth it just for a semester's peace of mind. It's not like Ten had ever gone so far as to mess with any of Doyoung's things. And honestly, living with Taeyong had left Doyoung unfazed to that.

The door creaks and Doyoung wonders whether he can blame it on something else, until he sees the silhouette of Ten's figure wandering inside. For fuck's sake, Doyoung would rather be having a sleep paralysis episode and deal with the demon in the corner of the room rather than Ten.

"I'm awake, dumbass," he croaks, unthreateningly. There's no response, just the eerie sound of Ten's even breathing and light footsteps. He's approaching.

"Don't come any closer," Doyoung tries again, raising his voice a tad, but again it doesn't seem to affect Ten at all. God, was this is it? Was he about to get strangled in his own bed? He hadn't even written his will—he needs to bequeath his Nintendo Switch to Johnny!

Ten gets to the bed side, and Doyoung squeaks, shuffling backwards until he gets to the edge of the mattress. This is it. He's going to die by the hand of his crazy roommate and his legacy will be the made-for-TV film they create based off this story that Johnny will surely sell the rights to.

Doyoung doesn't feel the sweet release of death as quickly as he expects to. All he feels is a shift of weight on the mattress, the space next to him being pressed down by another body. Ten's only gotten into bed next to him, clumsily fallen onto his back like it's an accident. He doesn't make a sound, besides some faint snoring.

That doesn't make Doyoung let his guard down. He won't let it. Who knows what this deviant is planning?

Although, it does really seem like he's sleeping soundly. But—no, Doyoung won't risk it. He'll stay up all night if he has to.

 

He doesn't. His fatigue surmounts his anxiety. It's not until late into the following morning that he's confronted with this peculiar situation once more when he wakes up. Not knowing what to do about it, considering he's trapped between the bed being pushed against the wall and Ten, Doyoung opts to unceremoniously elbow him in the side.

"What the fuck?" Ten asks groggily, arm swinging and hitting Doyoung in the face.

"That's what I should be asking you," Doyoung hisses. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Ten lazily blinks his eyes open, now registering the fact that he's not in his own room. “Holy shit,” he says, seeing Doyoung in such close proximity. His hand reaches to lift the blanket off of Doyoung’s body, verifying that he’s fully clothed. "Okay, so we didn't—"

"Don't you dare finish that thought," Doyoung snaps. "Why are you in my bed?"

"I don't know. I remember getting into my own bed last night," Ten says, scratching his cheek. "I mean, I was still kinda plastered when I got home but I definitely remember going into my room, because I tripped over my laundry pile."

The mention of a pile of dirty clothing on Ten's bedroom floor gives Doyoung a headache.

“Well, it’s not like I went into your room, picked you up, and brought you here, so what the fuck?” Doyoung asks.

“Um, I don’t know what to tell you. This is even weirder for me than it is for you,” Ten says. After a moment of thought, his look of confusion morphs into one of amusement. “Did we cuddle?”

“No, we did not _cuddle_. I have enough trouble sleeping without you climbing into my bed in the middle of the night. Stay out.”

Ten shrugs. "I'll try, but I really don't recall walking over here." He pauses. "Want a handy for your troubles?"

"Get the fuck out of my room."

 

Even if Ten says he doesn't remember anything, Doyoung doesn't buy it. Sure, he might've been too dazed and sleepy to do anything about it in the moment, but he won't let it happen again. Sacrifices have already been made in letting Ten interfere with the sanctity of what was supposed to be Doyoung's peaceful apartment, he wouldn't let him enter the threshold of his bedroom too. That would be crossing the line. Again.

But Ten maintains ignorance, says he's completely sure that he didn't walk into Doyoung's room of his own volition. And Doyoung doesn't care how much Ten lies, he won't crack the way he expects him to. (Even if this malicious method of disturbing his slumber is an ingenious way of bothering him.)

The only thing that's nagging at Doyoung is the fact that Ten isn't admitting to it. He wouldn't put lying past him, but Ten seems like a miscreant who would want to take credit. But no matter how much Doyoung presses him about last night's incident, bringing it up anytime they cross each other's paths that Sunday, Ten doesn't say anything new.

Doyoung has an early class in the morning, so he can't afford to perform a stakeout tonight, but he shoots Ten a glare from across the hallway before going to bed.

"Goodnight, honey," is all Ten says, almost absentmindedly, as he returns to staring at his computer.

And Doyoung thinks that's perhaps a good sign that Ten won't do it again, whatever strange attempt at breaking him he made, simply because he doesn't seem interested in the conquest. It didn't seem in his nature to do something if it wasn't an immediate success, since getting into Doyoung's bed only served to infuriate him more than it irritated.

"Just try it, you bastard," Doyoung mutters as he pulls his covers up to his chin, determined not to let Ten win.

 

It doesn’t happen again for a few more days. Doyoung finally feels safe to go to bed when one night he wakes up when he feels the mattress shift again, the definite warmth of another body being the next thing he notices.

"Ten," Doyoung whispers, quite loudly, in the otherwise unbothered vicinity of the room. No response.

“Ten,” Doyoung repeats, louder this time, but the other man is still asleep, or pretending to be asleep, and Doyoung doesn’t know what to do. This really doesn’t seem like a prank anymore. It doesn’t make any sense for it to be, when it doesn’t do anything to disturb him beyond this.

The callous part of him is saying that he could most definitely shake his roommate awake, but the kinder part of him that he thought died a long time ago is saying that he should just let him sleep.

Doyoung turns onto his side to face him. In his slumberous state, Ten hardly seems like a threat, the only detectable motion the rise and fall of his chest. There’s hardly any light in the room, aside from the shine of streetlights peeking in through the slats of Doyoung’s blinds, but it’s enough for all the jewelry on Ten’s ears to sparkle here and there.

“You’re such a nuisance,” Doyoung grumbles, feeling his eyes begin to close.

 

This time, Ten wakes up first, and the sound of his laughter is what makes Doyoung get up with a jolt. He sits up, throws the covers off of himself, backs up close to the wall behind him to get as far as possible. “What?!” Doyoung practically screeches, having to grasp the situation all over again. “Why are you here?!”

“I don’t know!” Ten replies cheerfully. “But I swear, I didn’t mean to. I went to bed earlier than you yesterday.”

Yes, Doyoung does recall seeing Ten saunter into his room from the bathroom, definitely yawning, a little before midnight. Even remembers noting that his light went off, noticeable in the otherwise dark hallway.

“Are you…serious?” Doyoung asks.

“I’ve never had this happen to me before,” Ten says. “I mean, I’ve never woken up somewhere without remembering how I got there.”

Doyoung isn’t convinced. “Oh, really?”

Ten snorts. “Okay, fine. I’ve never woken up somewhere I don’t remember falling asleep. I went to bed completely aware I was sleeping in my own bed. Why would I come here on purpose?”

“To make me crack?” Doyoung suggests.

“What?”

“That’s what you said at the start of the semester!” Doyoung exclaims. “You said you were going to make me crack, whatever that means!”

“Oh, right. I say a lot of things. They’re not all important.” Ten shrugs.

“You mean to tell me…I’ve been stressing for weeks over nothing?” Doyoung asks, indignant.

“You have?” Ten seems surprised himself. “Is that why you’ve been so on edge lately? Christ. I’m not a monster. Listen, I might mess with you a lot, like, a _lot_ , but that’s only because you let me. You don’t ever outright say when things bother you, you know?”

“I shouldn’t _have_ to.” Doyoung huffs. “Are you actually unaware of how awful of a roommate you are? Are you daft or just dumb?”

"Bit of both, but mostly a deviant,” Ten says with a grin. “Are _you_ distracted or just repressed? Maybe if you were as assertive as you want to be, you wouldn’t let people walk all over you.”

“I don’t let people walk all over me,” Doyoung says in adamant refusal.

“Oh, really? Then why do you clean up all the muddy footprints I left around the house? Why do you do my dishes? Why do you just walk out of the apartment when you see me getting railed in the kitchen?” Ten asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “The only time I listened to you was when you told me to put out my cigarette. That was cute. You were like a feisty little bunny.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Doyoung is baffled by Ten’s utter and willful ignorance of social etiquette. Their living situation does not by any means need to be treated like a long mind game. “Get out of my room.”

“See, you said that to me last time but you just let me right back in,” Ten points out with a laugh. “I might not have meant to do this, but it just further proves my point, no?”

Doyoung is seething. He points to his door. “Out.”

 

“They’re my new meds,” Ten says, as soon as Doyoung returns home in the evening. He’s sitting crosslegged on the sofa, fully clothed this time as Doyoung thankfully notes, his eyes glued to his phone. If he wasn’t the only other person in this room, Doyoung would have thought Ten was talking to someone else.

“What about your meds?” Doyoung asks, toeing his shoes off before stepping into their apartment. The floor’s dirty, but he’ll still do his part.

“These new meds I’m on. I only started taking them a couple of weeks ago, and one of the side-effects is sleepwalking,” Ten explains, only now looking up at Doyoung. “So that would be why. I can show you the prescription slip if you don’t believe me.”

Doyoung is unsure of how to take this information. If it’s not Ten’s fault then he can’t blame him for it, especially if it’s a consequence of something related to his health, but still, it’s a hindrance to have to wake up whenever Ten wanders into his room in the middle of the night.

“So, what are we going to do?” Doyoung then asks.

Ten raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘what are we going to do?’ You’ll just have to deal with it, no? I can’t go off my meds.”

“But, Ten—“ Doyoung sighs. “I understand you can’t, but is there any way to prevent this? I don’t want you to do anything to negatively impact your health, but you must understand why it’s difficult for me too, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll try to figure something out, but I guess this is how it’s going to be.”

How it’s going to be, Doyoung echoes in his head. It seems like he’s coming to accept that more often these days. He nods dejectedly and begins to walk to his bedroom when Ten calls his name again.

Doyoung turns his head, meets eyes with his roommate, who looks sincerely guilty for once. “Sorry. I know I’m already kind of a pain to live with,” Ten says.

That’s the understatement of the year, but Doyoung doesn’t feel like fighting. He just shrugs it off and keeps walking, but he finds it hard to take his mind off Ten’s expression for the rest of the night. The distraction only absolves itself from his head when it, or rather he, saunters into Doyoung’s room for the night and takes his place in the spot Doyoung already left for him.

 

Things hit an odd plateau after that exchange, with Doyoung growing far too busy with school work to devote any more time than absolutely necessary into squabbling with Ten. He’s lacking as it is in the willpower necessary to make it through this last semester, but he’s determined not to let any externalities distract him. Maybe Ten’s picked up on it too, or is too busy himself, but regardless there’s been less friction between the two of them, seeing as how the usual instigator hasn’t been instigating much at all.

So no, there hasn’t been much tension between the two of them as of late, aside from the usual silent moments in the morning when Doyoung contemplates strangling Ten in his sleep. But that thought’s only reserved for when Ten’s taking up three-quarters of the bed.

Ten doesn’t walk into his bedroom every night, and sometimes when he does, Doyoung’s already too passed out to notice. Sleep has been even more precious as he gets closer to the end of the semester, and even he can’t be bothered to kick up a fuss about this anymore.

The last time he complained was when he walked into his room after brushing his teeth to find an awake Ten already in his bed. “I wanted to see if this would make a difference,” Ten had said with an innocent smile. It didn’t.

So Doyoung just lets him do it, since it’s not technically his fault, and in the meantime Ten actually becomes a more tolerable person to live with. He’s not perfect, but at least he picks up after himself more often and doesn’t do anything outrageously inconsiderate. Their living situation finally seems to settle, and Doyoung accepts it, even when he wakes up one day to find them spooning. He cuddles closer.

Ten’s hair is tickling Doyoung’s nose, but he doesn’t mind it. Even if it’s in a situation like this the weight and warmth of another body is nice. He wants to say that it doesn’t matter that it’s Ten but it does, and it’s killing Doyoung. Ten’s actually taken care to be more thoughtful as of late, perhaps to make up for the fact of his sleepwalking. They hardly speak as roommates nowadays but they’re great at being bedfellows.

 

It’s the beginning of the end for Doyoung. One more round of exams, and then he’ll be done school _forever_. Freedom is so close, he can feel it grazing his fingertips as he reaches out into the ether. Just about twenty more days of hell and he can peace out of this hellish part of his life for good. And he gets one small victory today, in the form of it being his last day of classes.

Also, there Ten is in the kitchen, filling up his flask with something he took out of the cupboard and tucking it into his leather jacket in the early afternoon.

“Relax. It’s kombucha,” he says, feeling Doyoung’s judgmental gaze. “It’s two p.m, dude.”

“Why are you using a flask?” Doyoung asks.

“All the cups are dirty.”

“Then wash them.”

Ten frowns. “I’ll do it when I’m back from class. Be happy for me, honey. It’s all about to be over.”

“Congratulations,” Doyoung deadpans. Ten gives him a wink on his way out. It makes Doyoung want to slam his head against the wall. Repeatedly.

 

Doyoung and Ten clearly have differing opinions on how they’ll be spending this momentous day. His first exam is in a week, but Doyoung isn’t going to waste any time dawdling. In contrast Ten is getting ready to go out and “lose his mind”, an event for which he extends an invitation to Doyoung by yelling at him through the doorway of the bathroom.

From inside of the shower, Doyoung responds with a resounding “no”. Ten calls him a spoilsport and declares that he’s going downstairs to get his laundry. Doyoung doesn’t reply, but he’s almost proud that Ten’s proactively doing laundry.

By the time he’s out of the bathroom, the door opens again, without the indicative sound of the key turning in the lock. Doyoung assumes Ten must have left it unlocked while heading downstairs, but someone else walks in instead.

“Uh, hey,” the stranger says, looking straight at Doyoung with confusion. “Is Ten around?”

“He should be back in a minute,” Doyoung says, feeling a little self-conscious in his Ninja Turtles pyjama pants. He assumed he would be without the disruption of any guests tonight. Especially not a guest who’s walking right on in and making himself at home by planting his butt on the couch.

Doyoung idles in the room for a tad too long for it to be comfortable. The stranger glances up from his phone before making an expression as though he’s realized he should do something.

“I’m Sicheng, by the way,” he says. “I don’t know if Ten’s talked about me. You’re Doyoung, right?”

Ten _has_ talked about his friend Sicheng before, not that Doyoung’s ever voluntarily listened. From what he’s garnered Sicheng is his most frequent partner in debauchery, and while that would normally make Doyoung bristle, Sicheng is nothing like who he anticipated him to be. That is, he seems normal, but Doyoung knows better than to rely solely on a first impression.

“Yeah, I am,” Doyoung says, crossing his arms in reaction to a sudden feeling of defensiveness. “You two going out tonight?”

“Nah. We’re probably gonna get drunk at mine and play Mario Kart,” Sicheng says noncommittally. “I’ll bring him home safe and sound, but he might be breaking curfew.” The smirk on his face says everything. He’s just like Ten: good at pressing someone’s buttons _just_ so.

“Well,” Doyoung starts, trying to keep his tone even and unbothered. “Maybe he’ll be knocked out enough that he’ll stay in his own room for once.”

Sicheng, in recognition of to what Doyoung’s referring to, lets out a laugh. “I would go ballistic,” he says. “How long did that last? Two weeks?”

“Two weeks? More like two months,” Doyoung says with a frown.

“But Ten switched back to his old meds a while ago…” Sicheng trails off, perhaps realizing that he’s revealed something he shouldn’t have.

It’s too late, because Doyoung’s already piecing together everything in his head and quickly coming to the conclusion that this has been yet another ploy of Ten’s this whole time. It was a great source of stress until it settled into something unchangeable. Doyoung was settling into the routine and getting _comfortable_ waking up to Ten’s sleeping body when it’s been a ruse for weeks.

Ten comes through the door, key ring twirling around his finger jovially. “Yo, Sicheng! You ready to get fucked up—“

“You!” Doyoung barks, pointing right at his roommate. “Don’t you _ever_ come near my room again, you absolute psychopath! You’ve been inconsiderate all fucking year but just when I start to think you can actually be a functioning adult, I’m disappointed again. Don’t even look in my direction. I’m so fucking glad we’re out of here soon.”

Ten is at a loss for words, for the first time since he’s moved in. Doyoung expects Ten to let out a mean-spirited laugh and gloat about how he’s hoodwinked his roommate yet another time, but he just flushes, looking too ashamed to make eye contact with Doyoung.

Doyoung marches back to his room. He slams the door.

 

By 2 a.m, Doyoung is still studying, not having made much progress tonight due to seething instead. It’s just so unforgivable, what Ten’s done, because it was a deliberate attempt to let Doyoung’s guard down while absolving himself from all blame. Doyoung only tolerated it for this long because he thought there was no other option, but Ten was right: he does let people walk all over him.

Right from the start of university Doyoung hasn’t taken any assertive action against the things that bothered him. He sought out maneuvers instead, wanting to avoid the main conflict if he could, but that so often resulted in a stalemate where he was worse off anyway. Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to prevent Ten from sleepwalking, but he definitely could have been more forthright about hating his actions as a roommate.

This is a nightmare, because Doyoung wants to do anything but think about this, but it’s distracting him so much that he’s going to curl up and sob out of frustration. He didn’t realize he was this wound up with stress until now. The sound of the front door opening on the other side of the apartment doesn’t help.

Doyoung hopes that Ten will just go straight to bed as he often does, but he has no such luck when he hears footsteps drawing closer to his side of the hallway.

"Doyoooooung," Ten drawls from the other side of his bedroom door, audibly inebriated. "Can I come in?"

Doyoung doesn't respond, just hopes Ten will go away and have the decency to leave him alone for the three weeks left they have together. He's just trying to graduate, damn it. Collect his fucking credits and lumber across the stage and get his degree. He doesn't need Ten knocking at his door pleading in that saccharine tone of voice.

Ten repeats himself, drawing out the cry of Doyoung’s name for an even longer time. It makes Doyoung’s blood pressure rise. He can’t even tell if what he feels is anger anymore. There’s frustration there, evidently, but it leans more towards desperation than rage.

Fuck it. Doyoung gets up and wrenches his door open. Ten looks genuinely touched that his calls have been answered, his lips curling into a wobbly pout. “I’m not that drunk, I swear,” he says, and judging by his appearance it seems to be the truth. “I wanted to say I’m sorry— I just…I didn’t mean to keep coming to sleep in your room but after the first couple of times it was kind of comfortable…and I was sleeping better than usual…so even though I had switched my meds I was just going to do it one more time then stop.”

“And then you didn’t?” Doyoung asks, unimpressed.

“I didn’t,” Ten admits.

“I really, really don’t care anymore,” Doyoung says with a sigh, surprised to find that he actually believes his words. “I can’t bring myself to care anymore. So much shit has happened to me the last few years of me living with other people, I shouldn’t even be shocked anymore. My patience has been tested and tested and I realize now that the apex of that is just me…not caring anymore.”

“R-Really?” Ten asks. “I know I’ve been a bit up and down all year and I—I’m trying to do better, I promise. It’s just so easy to fall back into all the shitty habits of mine when I’m not feeling well and I know it sounds pathetic but this was just one of those things…”

“I understand, Ten,” Doyoung says. “If that’s the kind of situation you’re living in, then I’m not one to judge. I wish I could have largely been kept out of it but you know what? It doesn’t matter in the end. It’s not like I haven’t gotten used to your presence in the morning. And now I’ve also come to terms with the fact that no matter how much I’ve disliked some of the things you’ve done this year, I’m still insanely attracted to you. That’s how much I’ve lost it.”

“Oh my god,” Ten says quietly.

“Okay, goodnight,” Doyoung says, hand on the edge of the door to close it. He needs an aspirin and some sleep.

“Wait, Doyoung—“ Ten interjects. “We can.”

“Can…what?”

Ten looks right at Doyoung, wearing an expression as serious as Doyoung’s ever seen. “Let’s fuck. I want to, I’ve _been_ wanting to,” he says, stumbling over his words as quickly as they pour out of his mouth.

Doyoung gives him a look of disbelief. He laughs out the loudest he’s laughed in months.

“Fuck it. Fine.”

 

There was little patience in how either of them pounced on each other, but Doyoung isn’t in such a hurry that he’ll rush through the process entirely. Ten had, after climbing out of Doyoung’s lap, run to his room to retrieve a bottle of lube and a condom, the speed at which he ran there and back making Doyoung wonder whether Ten worried he would change his mind.

The lube is cherry-flavoured, which Doyoung berates Ten for as he set the items down on his nightstand. Ten sniffs indignantly. “It’ll still work,” he says in his defence.

Doyoung bends down to kiss him, in an effort to quiet him more than anything else. It’s still a weird feeling, kissing Ten, if only because Doyoung had been imagining it for longer than he’ll admit and holding reality up to that fantasy is very, very strange.

Because Ten’s not as wild and frantic as Doyoung expected him to be. He’s careful and meticulous, and likes to run his fingers through Doyoung’s hair while they kiss as though this is more intimate than it really is. It’s a nice feeling though, and Doyoung won’t protest, because for tonight at least he’s going to give into the indulgence of nice things.

“Hey,” Ten whispers, bringing one of Doyoung’s hands close to his mouth and putting his thumb into his mouth. Doyoung groans. He wasn’t expecting that, nor did he think it would feel so good.

“Fuck,” he says, looking down at Ten and his stupidly pretty eyes, wearing a considerate expression that makes Doyoung feel something in his chest that he’ll evaluate after this is over. “I don’t like that you can be this cute.”

Ten laughs, pulling off of Doyoung’s thumb. “I never thought you’d say that,” he says with a grin that Doyoung wants to kiss or smack off his face. “But hurry up, honey. I’m getting antsy.”

 _Honey._ That word used to drive him insane. And it still did, but in an entirely different way now. Doyoung unfolds, settling himself between Ten’s thighs and undoing the button of his jeans. Ten takes off his shirt, and clumsily reaches for Doyoung’s too, which makes him just pull it off himself.

Ten reaches next to him for the pink bottle of lube and Doyoung takes it but does nothing more, using his other hand to run his hand against the bulge in Ten’s boxers. Ten shudders, sensitive to the light touch, and his hips buck upward.

“Be patient,” Doyoung says, and Ten ceases all movement. The quick and obedient action of his makes Doyoung feel something new stir inside of him. Well. He doesn’t have time to unpack that right now, but he liked it. “Lift your hips.”

Ten does so, letting Doyoung hook his fingers around the waistband of his boxers and pull them down his legs. His cock is semi-hard against his stomach, and Doyoung wastes no time roughly jerking him off. The moan that Ten lets out reminds Doyoung of the time he walked in on Ten getting fucked in the kitchen, and for the second time ever does he consciously allow himself to admit that he had been thinking about that for far longer than he would have liked.

_"You just gonna stand there and watch, or are you gonna join us?”_

Just remembering the smug look on Ten’s face makes Doyoung’s blood pressure rise. He had never considered himself as needing to take _control_ during sex before but Ten’s inciting something strange in him. Frankly, Doyoung wants to hear him beg.

“God, Doyoung, just…” Ten groans, completely splayed out and naked beneath him.

Doyoung moves further down his bed, spreads Ten’s legs apart by the knees, and watches how his stomach twitches. “I could just leave you like this, you know,” Doyoung says, popping open the cap of the lube and squeezing a generous amount onto his fingers. “Needy and pliable.”

Ten bristles at that, looking toward Doyoung with a pleading gaze. “You wouldn’t,” he says, although his voice isn’t nearly as confident as usual.

“I won’t, but I damn well would,” Doyoung says, sliding his hand up the cleft of Ten’s ass. When he finally works one finger inside of him, Ten shivers in a way that delights Doyoung to no end. He bends further down between Ten’s legs and sucks a dark mark into his inner thigh just to see him squirm.

And he takes his sweet time stretching Ten open, just to see if he’ll snap. But he doesn’t, just complies to Doyoung’s touch with mewls that make Doyoung uncomfortably hard in his pants. Even still, he’s slow with one finger, then two, the third entering the quickest because the sight of Ten’s wet eyelashes sticking together is making his desire to fuck him uncontainable.

“Doyoung, please—“

“So now you bother being polite,” Doyoung says with half a smile on his lips. “Get on your hands and knees.”

While Ten busies himself with flipping over onto his stomach, Doyoung quickly rids himself of his pants, letting out a soft groan when his cock is freed from the confines of his boxers. “Pass me the condom,” he says, and Ten reaches toward the nightstand again and passes the packet back to Doyoung.

He realizes only after he’s rolled it over his dick that Ten is watching, neck craned at an angle that must be uncomfortable for him, but he’s watching nevertheless, eyes dark with want. Doyoung shuffles forward and lightly slaps his ass, making Ten let out a whine.

“Fuck, come on, please,” Ten whispers, pushing back into Doyoung’s touch. Maybe if Doyoung could stand to wait any longer he would make Ten beg even harder, but he has his limits. In one way or another he’s been waiting all fucking year.

Doyoung slowly pushes in, a harsh intake of air passing through his teeth. Ten lets out a sharp gasp, head unable to hold itself up and dropping between his arms onto the mattress. Neither of them make another move for a moment to allow themselves to adjust, but Ten is the one to push backward, and Doyoung takes that as his chance to completely bottom out.

Ten moans as Doyoung’s eyes shut from the sensation, and the sound stays absolutely still in his memory until he pulls out and thrusts back in to recreate it.

“God, you feel so fucking good,” Doyoung growls, bending forward to gently bite at Ten’s shoulder.

Ten can’t seem to string a cohesive set of words together right now, judging by how anything he does manage to say are cut-off profanities. That’s just fine with Doyoung, so long as he knows they’re both enjoying this, both relishing in the fact that they’re finally relieving whatever tension that’s hung in the air of their apartment for months. It had gotten more and more severe until it was unbearable.

“So this is what you needed all along, hm? You’re so good once you’re shown your place,” Doyoung whispers, and he’s not really sure what’s come over himself, only knows that seeing Ten beneath him like this is so much more intoxicating than he ever imagined. “Are you going to keep being good for me, baby?”

“Yes,” Ten gasps, turning his head slightly to the side so he can let himself be properly heard. “I will—I’ll be good for you.”

Doyoung rewards him by pulling back to rest his hands on Ten’s hips, grabbing them tightly as he thrusts into him faster. Every time he pulls out until it’s just the head of his cock inside Ten, he realizes he’s trembling, actions having preceded any real train of thought since Ten had grabbed a handful of his shirt and pushed the both of them onto his bed. But it’s satisfying to see how things have shifted, that Ten seems to enjoy being wrecked this way, and Doyoung didn’t realize until just moments ago that he really enjoys doing the wrecking.

It’s not even a release of any resentment he holds against Ten, really, Doyoung let go of all that when he realized he had no need to care anymore. Aside from all the pent up anger that he’s unleashed into punching his pillow all year, the rest was a lot of pent up frustration of needing to admit that since the first day, when he walked in on Ten without his shirt, what Doyoung really wanted to do was tear the rest of his clothes off. And it only got worse from there.

“Do-Doyoung, fuck, I really—“ Ten gasps out, struggling to keep himself up on his limbs. “I need—“ He rather desperately mewls as Doyoung pulls out of him completely, only realizing what he’s being told to do once Doyoung’s patted the outside of his thigh several times.

Ten’s face is completely flushed, Doyoung notes as they’re face to face again, Ten on his back with his legs on either side of Doyoung’s waist. The sight is as cute as it is rare. Doyoung runs his hand along Ten’s thigh again, grabs it with a harsh grip, and hooks it over his shoulder before he’s pushing in again.

The sound that Ten lets out is sinful. Doyoung doesn’t revel in it the first time because he’s doing his best to make sure it’s the only sound Ten can make. He continues like that, snapping his hips forward against Ten to hit his prostate, Doyoung’s eyes trained entirely on Ten’s expression.

“You’re so pretty,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to his neck. It might be the most tender event that’s transpired between them tonight, and Ten might have gotten even redder at it, if it’s not Doyoung’s imagination going where it wants.

To his complete surprise, Ten takes Doyoung’s face in his hands and kisses him, their lips moulding together slickly but in a way that feels _closer_ than this occasion called for. It’s still a little messy, but it’s slow and it’s deep, and it distracts Doyoung long enough until it can’t anymore.

“I’m gonna come,” Doyoung mumbles, and Ten gets closer, as close as he can, wrapping his legs around Doyoung’s waist. It pulls him in deeper, and Doyoung moans against Ten’s mouth as he finishes. His thrusts grow languid as he shudders through his orgasm, Ten’s lips still pressed to his until his movements still.

Doyoung pulls out slowly, makes to tie up the condom and throws it away, turning back to see Ten with his hand working over his cock. There’s a small part of him that just wants to watch, but so much more of him that moves him to settle between Ten’s legs again, head dipping downward.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to—“

“I want to,” Doyoung says, taking Ten into his hand and giving him a few firm strokes before leaning forward to wrap his lips around his cock. A breathy moan escapes Ten, his fingers reaching to take hold of Doyoung’s hair but, like before, to only run them gently through the strands.

Ten seems hesitant to move any more than that, but Doyoung wants him to, and he hopes that he can convey that by glancing up at him with wide eyes. The look that’s returned to him is unexpectedly compassionate. Something stirs in Doyoung’s chest again, and he’s curious about its implications, but not worried. He wonders what that means.

Even still, he wants to focus on making Ten feel good, and so he slides his mouth as far down his dick as he can manage. His hand grabs hold of Ten’s waist, rubbing his thumb against the dip of his pelvic bone as Ten writhes under his touch. Again he finds himself looking up to observe Ten’s reactions, wanting to see him convulse beautifully as he grows closer to the edge.

Ten moans Doyoung’s name as his only form of warning. It’s still enough to make Doyoung pull off and reach for the base of his cock, stroking Ten off until he’s coming all over Doyoung’s hand and his own stomach, Doyoung’s name still repeated interlaced with impulsive expletives.

They stay silent, even when Doyoung gets to his feet and strolls to the washroom to wash his hands and get something to help clean Ten up. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and observes his dishevelled appearance, most notably the almost-purple hickey left beneath his collarbone. It’s been so long since he’s seen one on himself that he’s fascinated, running the pad of his thumb over the mark. The compulsion to do so comes even though he doesn’t expect it to feel like anything but skin.

When he returns to his room Ten is still on his back, clearly spent from the impromptu activities. Doyoung laughs, softly enough to keep it to himself, and takes a seat on the mattress to run the tissue in his hand against Ten’s stomach. Ten lets out a noise of surprise, but says nothing as Doyoung continues.

“Take over for a sec,” Doyoung whispers, getting up again to grab the water bottle on his desk and bring it back. “Sit up, have some water.”

Ten does as he’s told, letting out a deep breath after he’s taken a big gulp. When he turns his head to make eye contact with Doyoung, he finally says something.

“Holy shit,” he snorts.

“I agree,” Doyoung says, climbing into bed next to him. He feels inclined to grab Ten’s hand at this point, but Ten seems to freeze up, which makes Doyoung recoil.

“I’m sorry, it’s just—I’m actually sorry. For being a burden,” Ten says in a small voice.

“You’re not. Other stuff aside, I didn’t have much to lose from you sleeping better at night,” Doyoung says, shifting his gaze to stare up at the ceiling. “I know I snapped at you earlier, but I was angry that you lied to me more than anything.”

“And what about the other stuff?” Ten asks.

“There’s a lot of things you’ve done to drive me up the wall, but you probably would have stopped if I hadn’t let it bother me, huh?”

Ten laughs. “It was really funny to watch you stomp your feet around when you notice I moved stuff around in the fridge.”

“I was about to get my own, I was so annoyed,” Doyoung says. In this strange, blissed out state, so many things don’t seem to matter anymore. “Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

Ten nods. While it takes them a few minutes to get back into some clothes and get ready for bed, by the time they’re under the covers, Doyoung immediately feels sleep enveloping him. He leans his head near Ten’s. They fall asleep curled up close to each other, for the first time ever, on purpose.

 

Doyoung isn’t one to be dramatic, but getting out of school was the best fucking thing that’s ever happened to him in his entire life. Sure, he’s thankful to the institution for giving him the flimsy piece of paper required to prove himself useful to society, but he is ever so happy to never have to worry about taking another test again. Alongside his measly gratitude to school is his exponentially larger gratitude towards himself for having busted his ass the past four years so that he could actually get a decent job once the time comes.

When he receives his signing bonus, he already knows he’ll be putting most of it towards paying off his student debts (damn you, unaffordable tuition), but he decides to be partially selfish and get a nice apartment all to himself.

Getting to live alone is Doyoung’s greatest happiness. Everything is exactly as it should be and he never has to worry about a thing. It’s his absolute utopia, to be able to come home to no surprises and a quiet atmosphere.

But, being inherently contradictory, Doyoung misses a little mess. Whether it’s just become ingrained in his identity or whether he attributes it to Ten he’s unsure, but there’s the odd moment when Doyoung wants a dish or two in the sink. He’s crazy for thinking it, would definitely regret it if his short-lived wishes came to be true, but at least he gets to experience it again on occasion.

The occasion being all of the time that Ten spends in the apartment, which is really quite a lot, although neither of them have broached the topic of living together again. It would take a good longer while of seeing each other and long deliberation before they even consider it. Things are fine as they are for now, Doyoung is happy to say, and on days when he’s feeling like he’s perhaps created too rigid of a lifestyle for himself, he’ll find Ten sitting in his living room with graphite drawings scattered all over the floor.

But Ten will smile up at him in a manner that makes Doyoung weak, and all will (probably) be forgiven.

It’s the best when in the morning Doyoung finds Ten sleeping soundly next to him, his breathing soft and even and undisturbed. That’s when Doyoung likes to press kisses to his warm forehead and cheeks to gently wake him. The weekends are usually reserved for Ten so they can spend time together, and Doyoung doesn’t want to lose a single moment.

This morning, however, Ten’s spot is empty. Doyoung furrows his brow, puzzled, especially since he can’t hear the sound of the shower running to explain the absence. It’s not long though, until Ten’s sauntering back into the bedroom with a serene smile on his face, sidling up next to Doyoung and nuzzling their cheeks together.

“Good morning, honey,” Ten says, soft smile on his lips as he closes his eyes. “I broke your toaster trying to make poptarts.”

“What’d you do with it?” Doyoung asks sleepily, wrapping an arm around Ten’s body.

“It started to smoke,” Ten says with a content sigh. “I threw it out the window.”

**Author's Note:**

> lmao i wrote more than half of this back in october and it took me absolutely forever to get back to it :'/ originally inspired by [this msg](https://curiouscat.me/idlesong/post/493680820) i got on cc that was one (1) sentence leading to this whole mess,, if you recall being the person who sent it to me lmk so i can thank u again!!!
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/idle_song) | [curiouscat](http://curiouscat.me/idlesong)


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